


Not Only to Believe in Ourselves

by leftofrevolution



Series: Shall Stand Alone [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-02-01 01:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/pseuds/leftofrevolution
Summary: Maul was halfway through hour four of his daily training regime (not as rigorously adhered to as it had been, once, and somewhat modified, but still a regular part of his schedule when he had the time) when he heard the door chime of the workout room.
Relationships: Darth Maul/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Series: Shall Stand Alone [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/516397
Comments: 23
Kudos: 32





	Not Only to Believe in Ourselves

Maul was halfway through hour four of his daily training regime (not as rigorously adhered to as it had been, once, and somewhat modified, but still a regular part of his schedule when he had the time) when he heard the door chime of the workout room.

He had been given access to the officers’ exercise block on the _Admonitor_; as his own quarters were slightly too small for his purposes even with all of the furniture pushed against the walls, he had deemed the exercise block sufficient and started making use of it the day after his arrival. There were private rooms available, but even so he had quickly made a habit of arriving very early in the _Admonitor’s_ morning cycle and not leaving his chosen room until after the first shift had started, minimizing the number of Imperials he had to interact with. No one had ever interrupted him before, but then, there were not a large number of private rooms, and he had only been on the Star Destroyer for six days; likely that had just been luck, even if he did have the room reserved for another hour and a half.

He lowered himself carefully out of his handstand and dialed back down the gravity to Coruscanti standard with the wall control before walking over to the door and tapping on the door panel. While he had felt the simmer of mild irritation when initially interrupted, that faded upon his approach to the door when he sensed just who was on the other side of it.

Thrawn smiled slightly as the door slid open. “Lord Maul.”

Maul did not smile back. Grand Admiral Thrawn had invited him to dine twice more since their debarking on the _Admonitor_, but never had he done so in person. “Grand Admiral.”

“I apologize for springing this on you so suddenly, but we have just gotten word that the Noghri have stopped destroying every protocol droid we’ve sent to Honoghr’s surface and have agreed to meet with us. We’re due to meet the High Seat in Nystao in two hours, and we’ll be arriving in orbit over Honoghr in one. I was hoping you and at least one of your Mandalorian commanders would like to join me for the negotiations.”

Maul frowned. “I am not a diplomat.”

Thrawn’s smile deepened, deepening the creases around the corners of his eyes. “I wouldn’t be inviting you if you were.”

\--*--

Thrawn had spoken of the Noghri to him before, if briefly. They were fairly primitive and had not yet achieved intergalactic spaceflight on their own, but they had gained Thrawn’s notice when Imperial forces had engaged a small Far Outsider fleet in Honoghr’s orbit while Thrawn had been dispatched on his mission in the Mid Rim. Thrawn’s own fleet had arrived too late to prevent the Far Outsiders from landing in numbers at Honoghr’s capital, but what would have normally spelled complete disaster for the ground campaign instead ended with Imperial probe droids touching down to find nothing but Far Outsider corpses fewer than six hours after their ships’ estimated landing.

The facts known about the Noghri were thus: Clan-based society made up of close-knit families. Culture at least still nominally based around hunting and farming, for all that the farming had become largely automated in the past century and the hunting had long since become more ritual than necessity. A fairly standard fact pattern for a culture in this stage of development, if it were not for the fact that on Honoghr, this had resulted in an entire species of deathly silent, extremely efficient killers.

((If the Grand Admiral manages to make this work, I give it six hours before one of our own challenges one of these Noghri to a fight and a week before we see a marriage proposal.))

Saxon chuckled, not bothering to refute Rahl’s prediction. ((They’ll be part of the Mando Empire within five years. A Noghri Mand’alor within two generations.))

((You don’t share a language,)) Maul felt obligated to point out. He had done his best to ignore his commanders’ chatter, seeing as he felt indirectly responsible for it by allowing Rahl to come (Saxon he had ordered along, seeing as he was the Imperial liaison, but Rahl had volunteered, and he wasn’t entirely sure why), but the sheer illogicality of it had drawn him in. ((There isn’t a single Mando’ad in any of the five battalions who speaks Sy Bisti.))

((You do,)) said Saxon.

Rahl, for her part, just smiled at him sweetly in a way that showed off every single one of her sharp teeth. ((Don’t worry, boss, love’ll find a way.))

At the other end of the sitting room of the _Lambda_-class shuttle, Synic Mitth'ras'safis raised his head from where he had conferring with the Grand Admiral at the room’s small conference table. “Don’t you know it is rude to speak so others can’t understand?” said the Syndic mildly, his Basic even more harshly accented than Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo’s.

Maul was fairly sure it was a joke, considering the faint air of amusement surrounding the Syndic and the fact that he and Thrawn together seemed to speak to each other exclusively in what Maul could only assume was the Chiss language. Which Maul had witnessed frequently enough between them, the Commander, and Captain Parck that it was simple to parrot at the Syndic words of acknowledgement from a military commander to a politician of the Syndic’s standing (specifically how Parck and Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo addressed the Syndic upon seeing him; Thrawn’s greeting was different, about which Maul had his own suspicions). Pairing it was a rather ironic nod was probably overkill, but neither adequately explained the strength of the flare of surprise surrounding the Syndic as his eyes widened before he turned and hissed something at Thrawn.

“Believe it or not,” replied Thrawn to the Syndic in Basic, “I haven’t taught him a word of Cheunh.” He felt nearly as surprised as the Syndic, though there was something pleased in the cast of his face as he turned and looked at Maul.

Beside him, Rahl flashed another one of her overly friendly smiles, while Saxon just smirked. “Yeah, we never taught him any Mando’a either.”

((You just refuse to speak anything else around me for five years,)) said Maul.

((Not my fault Basic’s ugly, boss,)) said Saxon, still smirking.

Seated next to the cockpit door and previously to all appearances distracted with a datapad, Captain Niriz said, his tone extremely long-suffering, “Can we _please_ stick to Basic?”

“Not really,” came Parck’s voice over the comms; though he had stayed behind on the _Impervious_—“designated survivor,” Saxon had quipped, and he wasn’t wrong—the captain seemed intent on participating in the proceedings however he could. Which apparently included riling his fellow captain, however mildly. “Hardly anyone knows it out here.”

“_We _do,” said Niriz to Parck, who said something back in the so-named Cheunh that actually made the Syndic laugh—a single _hah!_—before he smothered it with a cough.

“We can until our arrival in Nystao, captain,” said Thrawn, conciliatory, “But unfortunately the Noghri only speak their own language and Sy Bisti.”

“Which among us only you and Lord Maul speak, Grand Admiral,” said Niriz, glaring at the comm as though he were imagining Parck’s face, though he felt more resigned than truly angry.

“Your counsel will still be welcome,” said Thrawn.

“I think we can keep ourselves adequately entertained in the meantime,” hummed Rahl.

“I doubt it,” said Niriz, which was at once both a ruder and more familiar response than Maul had expected from the captain, who had during that first dinner mostly given the impression that he was just waiting for the Mando’ade to turn on them and attempt to kill them all.

Rahl’s answering finger guns pointed at Niriz’s face was more or less what Maul expected, though instead of the usual sickly-sweet smile that accompanied the threat, the Falleen winked, the gesture so obviously, ostentatiously flirtatious that it crossed over into mockery. A parody of Falleen stereotypes in fifteen kilograms of beskar’gam.

Niriz’s response was even more inexplicable, the human visibly rolling his eyes before turning back to his datapad.

However, Maul didn’t have any time to contemplate the aberrant behavior before the voice of the pilot came over the comms: “Nystao in visual range. ETA ninety seconds and counting.”

“Alright,” said Saxon, snapping back on his helmet before rubbing his hands together. “Showtime.”

“You do know we’re not here to kill anybody,” said Niriz. When Saxon just shrugged, Niriz turned to Rahl. “_Please_ tell me you know we’re not here to kill anybody.”

Rahl, who had long since pulled back on her own helmet and was halfway through disassembling and reassembling her laser rifle on the sitting room’s only table, didn’t even bother glancing up. “Eh, don’t worry about it, captain, _ni vencuyanir gar_.”

\--*--

While the Grand Admiral had left behind the Stormtroopers as a show of goodwill, no one at any point had suggested the landing party go unarmed. Or unarmored. Both of the Imperials and the Syndic wore body armor under their uniforms, and of course the Mando’ade had their beskar’gam. In addition, while only the Mando’ade had guns for appearances’ sake, the pistols they carried were Imperial standard and designed for quick draws, so of the six people who disembarked from the shuttle ramp, only Maul himself had neither armor nor a designated blaster, though the Syndic had been uncomfortable enough with both during the debriefing on the _Admonitor _that Maul privately thought Rahl’s promise of protection would have been better given to the politician than the navy captain who at least seemed to know how to shoot.

They had landed about a kilometer from the outskirts of Nystao, the Noghri (quite sensibly, considering they had only achieved even the most basic spaceflight less than fifty years ago and their shielding and energy weapon technology was theoretical at best) having banned them from landing in their capital proper. The landing platform they were directed to instead was of newer construction, though not new, which made sense for a people who at least had established off-planet trade relations long enough ago for several of their people to be fluent in Sy Bisti.

Whatever familiarity the Noghri had with outsiders was obviously not enough to overcome either the fact that they’d had to repel an alien invasion less than two weeks ago or that they’d never had any dealings with either the Chiss or the Empire before, however, as their party of six was met with a greeting party numbering five times that, Maul counting all but three of them heavily armed.

((Quite a welcome,)) Saxon said, nearly laughing, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

((Stop acting like you’re expecting a fight or I’m sending you back to the ship,)) said Maul without looking away from the lead Noghri, one of the three not carrying either a sickle or a massive slugthrower. Not that she had left herself entirely undefended; as their group of six approached her group of thirty, he could tell from the way she stood that she had at least two knives strapped to her upper arms beneath her sleeves, and likely a holdout pistol in the small of her back as well.

She did not seem overly perturbed by Saxon’s obvious eagerness, for all that half of the eyes in her retinue were trained on him, instead walking up to meet them and giving a polite nod to Thrawn in the front. [[Grand Admiral Thrawn. I am Dynast Ilkwen of Clan Khim’bar, the foreign minister of Honoghr’s planetary government. I am here to escort you to the Grand Dukha to meet with the other dynasts and the High Seat.]] Her eyes skimmed over the rest of them, pausing briefly on the Syndic before continuing, [[We are honored by the trust you show us in bringing your closest kin with you.]]

Nothing of the flicker of alarm that shot through Thrawn at the dynast’s words showed on Thrawn’s face, as he merely nodded in turn, his faint smile determinedly pleasant. [[Of course. May I introduce Lord Maul and Commanders Saxon and Rahl of Mandalore, my- ah, brother,]] Thrawn’s eyes flickered over to Maul, as if he were expecting some sort of reaction to the obvious, [[Synic Mitth'ras'safis of the Chiss Ascendancy, and Captain Niriz of the Empire. Only Lord Maul also speaks Sy Bisti, so please be understanding if the others’ involvement in our discussions is limited.]]

Dynast Ilkwen’s expression remained stolid as Thrawn spoke, but she was definitely amused as she replied, [[Well, I am one of only two members of the council who speaks Sy Bisti, and our translator software is clumsy at best, so I will be forgiving about conversational missteps if you are.]]

It was a much friendlier opening than Maul had expected, considering the number of guns. But then, none of the guns were pointed directly at them, and perhaps that was cordiality, within a fortnight of an alien invasion.

Saxon and Rahl certainly seemed to think so, Saxon holstering his rifle and Rahl immediately following suit as the dynast’s retinue all turned to walk back towards Nystao even as most of the Noghri fanned out around them, flanking them on all sides. None of Saxon’s cheerfulness had faded, however, bounciness still visible in his step as he started looking around, mostly at the Noghri themselves.

Something to keep an eye on. Saxon was perpetually entertained by mostly everything, but sensing actual happiness from him usually meant he thought he was about to get into a fight he might lose.

((So,)) said Saxon to the Noghri nearest him, who turned to stare at him uncomprehendingly, ((That’s a _really _nice slugthrower rifle you have there. Semi-auto, right? Maybe once we’ve wrapped this up you can let me look at it, maybe… take it apart?))

… Or that he thought something else was about to happen.

The Noghri Saxon was addressing did not speak Basic, much less Mando’a. None of the Noghri had any reason to know Mando’a. Somehow, Saxon’s tone and the way he was leaning still managed to cut their way through the cultural barrier, the language barrier, and the fact that Saxon was wearing full body, face concealing body armor, because the Noghri blinked twice before barking out a sound that was readily identifiable as a laugh, then gave Saxon a clear once over before turning and saying something to the Noghri on his left, who _also _blinked before looking at Saxon, and within a minute there was a low buzz surround them, what had been eerie silence immediately transformed by easy-if-unintelligible chatter.

Within thirty seconds of _that_, the tension in the air had ratcheted so noticeably down that most of the Noghri actually _holstered their guns_.

((It’s been barely five minutes,)) said Rahl, half-disbelieving, half-admiring. ((I feel like I should be marking you down for some sort of record.))

Saxon shrugged, still looking at the first Noghri, who even from Maul’s angle was obviously sneaking glances at Saxon in his periphery. ((What can I say? I love first contact missions.))

\--*--

Nystao had appeared relatively unscathed from orbit, but that was quickly exposed for a lie upon their approach. Nothing too obvious—the Far Outsiders had been attempting to take over the capital, not destroy it, so the damage to the infrastructure was minimal—but the signs were there. Broken windows only recently boarded over, slight discoloration in the sides of buildings where bullet holes had been filled with mortar. Too few people. And even without that, Maul would have known. It had been a fortnight, but the acrid stench of old blood and burning flesh still lingered in the air.

And that was only on the avenues the dynast had chosen for their procession, to show strangers they had no cause to trust and every reason to present a show of strength, which meant the rest of the city was worse.

[[How many dead?]] he asked Dynast Ilkwen, who turned and studied him for a moment before she replied, her teeth bared in a kind of embittered pride.

[[Fewer of us than of them.]]

Nystao’s metropolitan population was ten million, roughly half that in the actual city center. Which meant, based on the Far Outsider’s prior invasions, there had likely been approximately five hundred thousand Far Outsiders initially deployed in Nystao.

Ground campaigns against the Far Outsiders had historically been complete and utter catastrophes. Any battle with Far Outsiders where the other side didn’t manage to stop them before they made landfall in a city had, to a one, been lost, to the point that any world that had more than one hundred thousand Far Outsiders on planet was usually considered conquered and promptly abandoned.

Nystao had been invaded by five times that number.

At best count, perhaps a tenth of the Far Outsider ships that had landed in Nystao had fled soon after.

Which meant something in the order of four hundred fifty thousand Far Outsider dead. But also likely similar numbers of Noghri, most of them civilians.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maul watched a pair of pedestrians walk down the other side of the street, pausing to order some meat skewers from a vendor—the way they moved in complete, instinctual silence, the sickles casually visible on their hips. Well. Civilians as much as they could be, which Maul suspected to be much in the same order as Mando’ade. As irritating as Rahl and Saxon’s banter had been, they had not been wrong in their assessment of similarities, for all that Honoghr, despite recent events, was far less devastated than Manda’yaim by war.

He belatedly realized that the dynast was still looking at him, seemingly waiting for a response. He didn’t actually have one, so he just stared back at her. Noghri, he noted, did not blink a great deal either.

After a few seconds, Thrawn coughed. [[If I may ask, Dynast Ilkwen, are there any formalities we should observe in the Grand Dukha?]]

After a moment, the dynast quite deliberately broke eye contact, blinking leisurely before turning to look at Thrawn. [[Nothing onerous. Greet the High Seat first. Don’t threaten anyone, and try and be polite even if the person you are speaking to is not. Not rising to insult is seen as a sign of strength among our people if you can maintain an unbothered countenance.]]

[[Should we be expecting such insult?]] Thrawn asked mildly.

The dynast’s mouth quirked, the sun glinting off one fang. [[Not all of the council likes aliens. Considering recent events, can you blame them?]]

\--*--

The Grant Dukha served as the top floor to a tower that rose approximately twenty stories into the air, by far the tallest building in Nystao where few other buildings were taller than three. Seeing as the tower served as the capitol building for the entire planet, its relative grandeur made a certain amount of sense.

As did the security, as their entire contingent was ordered to divest themselves of their weapons as soon as they came in through the front door.

[[You understand, of course,]] said Dynast Ilkwen to Thrawn, who just spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture that highlighted more than ever his resemblance to the Syndic.

It was an expected and sensible precaution, which didn’t stop it from becoming vaguely comical when it came to the Mando’ade, both of whom had to partially strip to get to some of their more sequestered armaments. The Noghri were obviously nonplussed upon first Saxon and then Rahl removing their helmets, Saxon to get at yet another knife—a thin stiletto taped to the inside of his helmet—while Rahl unknotted her hair tie and handed it to the nearest Nohgri. ((Be careful with that,)) she said cheerfully, not seeming to care at all that the Noghri couldn’t understand her. ((That’s monofilament wire.))

“_Why_,” said Niriz, who despite not speaking a word of Mando’a as far as Maul knew appeared to recognize the wire on sight.

Rahl just laughed as she slipped back on her helmet. “You think _that’s _a bit much…” she jerked her head at Saxon, who had pulled off both of his gauntlets and unclipped the stun charges from the interior of each before using his ungloved hands to unclasp his drop earring from his ear. “That dumb bastard keeps an explosive right next to his head.”

“It’s cortex,” said Saxon, kneeling to put down the earring and pull several more knives out of his boots. “The amount of electricity required to destabilize it would mean I’m dead anyway.”

Dynast Ilkwen, who had mostly stayed quiet during the stripping, had her eyes narrowed thoughtfully at first Rahl’s and then Saxon’s face es before turning to Maul. [[You come to us representing three separate factions, but species does not at all seem to guide allegiance.]]

[[No,]] Maul agreed. As he had anticipated the request to hand over their weapons, he had only brought his lightsaber—Mando’ad culture dictating he let no one but his most trusted generals touch the dark saber, he had left it with Kast before their departure—and had telekinetically locked it so it couldn’t be activated before handing it over, so was waiting next to the Imperials and the Syndic while they watched along with the Noghri as the two Mando’ade continued to pile a small armory onto the floor.

He had also told both Saxon and Rahl that they would likely be asked to disarm, which mean he could only assume the current array was some kind of demonstration to make a point. Though based on the looks Saxon kept on shooting the Noghri soldier with the most well maintained semi-automatic slugthrower rifle—and the fact that Rahl elbowed Saxon more than once and kept on hissing at him in Mando’a to be less of a flirt—he didn’t want to dwell overmuch on what that point _was_.

[[Presuming our discussions go well,]] the dynast said carefully, [[I look forward to learning about the diversity of cultures in your part of the galaxy.]]

Maul was vaguely tempted to make some sort of remark about how she was learning all she needed to about the Mando’ade right now, but considering both the sheer number of weapons and the growing amount of bared teeth he currently counted on the nearest Noghri soldiers—a strange mixture of threat display and avid interest—he was beginning to think Rahl and Saxon near prophetic in their earlier predictions. [[You will get your chance.]]

\--*--

All told, getting through security took about fifteen minutes, and the atmosphere had become strangely expectant by the time they took the lift up to the Grand Dukha, only half of their original guard accompanying them but the rest visibly disappointed by being denied the opportunity.

It was therefore a bit anticlimactic that when they walked out of the lift into the Grand Dukha, the one seated Noghri—a grizzled old warrior with only one arm—took one look at them and said, in clipped, harshly accented Sy Bisti, [[I have been told the monsters who attacked us are also your enemy.]]

[[Ah…]] said Thrawn, who obviously had been expecting more of a lead in, [[That is correct, high seat.]]

[[You protect our skies,]] said the high seat, [[You may have half of our army for your war against them.]] He jerked his head at the Noghri in military garb standing on his right. [[General Khabarakh will liaise with you, but few of our forces speak Sy Bisti. Do you have any among your number physically capable of learning our tongue?]]

[[Yes,]] said Maul, who had listened to the Noghri speak amongst themselves enough to know at least himself capable of it.

The high seat looked at him. [[The general will teach you Honoghran, then.]]

There was a moment of silence.

[[Anything else?]] said the high seat.

[[… No, high seat,]] said Thrawn.

The high seat made a dismissive gesture. [[That is all, then.]] He paused. [[Lunch has been prepared for you down one floor.]]

\--*--

Seeing as most of them had eaten breakfast less than an hour ago and the meal was obviously only being offered out of politeness besides, they lingered in the dining hall something fewer than five minutes before taking the lift back downstairs, standing in the foyer as the Mando’ade rearmed themselves.

“We don’t have the room for three million new army personnel,” said Niriz flatly, not bothering to keep his voice down in light of the Noghri’s incomprehension of Basic. “Our ships are already fully staffed.”

“You’ve got eight hundred seventy Star Destroyers in your fleet and ten thousand Stormtroopers per Imperial Star Destroyer, not to mention your corvettes and frigates,” Saxon pointed out, slipping the wire of his earring back through the hole in his ear and reattaching the clasp. “That’s over nine million ground troops right there. Just station a third of the Stormtroopers on held and allied planets and replace them with the Noghri.”

“They don’t know our procedures, our capabilities, or our _language_,” Niriz said pointedly. “I don’t care how capable the Noghri forces are in the abstract, integrating them is going to take _years_.”

“That and you’re all racists,” said Rahl nonchalantly, biting the monofilament wire between her teeth as she re-braided her hair.

Niriz opened his mouth as if to dispute this before glancing at Thrawn, and something in his commanding officer’s expression instead caused the captain to look away, jaw clenched.

“We might have an easier time integrating them into the Ascendency forces,” said the Syndic. “I’ll have to speak on it with Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo, of course, but Sy Bisti is spoken by many Chiss, we’re slightly less homogenous, and Cheunh _is _a more useful language for the Noghri to learn in this part of the galaxy than Basic.”

“Lord Maul,” said Thrawn, speaking for the first time since they left the Grand Dukha, “How long do you believe it will take you to make your Honoghran passable for military communications?”

“Assuming General Khabarakh’s fluency in Sy Bisti, two weeks,” said Maul.

“… Weeks,” said the Syndic, sounding doubtful.

Maul stared at him. “Yes.” Learning a new language was simple if you actually had an instructor, seeing as that removed any need to apply critical thinking or observational skills. He had never understood why people acted as if it were otherwise.

“That would certainly allow for quicker deployment if Lord Maul could command the Noghri forces in just a fortnight,” said Thrawn, apparently having decided to bulldoze through the tension between Maul and his brother through pointed obliviousness. “But you are correct, Syndic, that we will reach no actual consensus on this matter until we have consulted with the commander.” He glanced at the two Mando’ade, of whom Rahl had finished gathering her arms and Saxon for some reason was holding two of his knives as if he’d forgotten where he’d originally sheathed them. “If you two are done…”

“’Course,” said Saxon easily, securing one of the knives under his right wrist guard and flipping the other so he grasped it by the blade before holding it out to one of the Noghri. That same Noghri. Who stared at it before looking at Saxon, who just continued to hold it out encouragingly. ((Come on. Forged that one myself. Holds an edge like anything.))

((Week?)) said Rahl, not entirely under her breath. ((More like _day_.))

((Not everyone is as precious with their blades as you, Rahl,)) said Saxon, his smirk blossoming into a full out grin as the Noghri took the knife gingerly by the hilt before flipping it a few times himself to test the balance and giving Saxon another uncertain look. Saxon just gave him a wink before securing on his helmet, throwing his rifle over one shoulder and walking out the door.

[[I see I am not the only one looking forward to learning about the diversity of our cultures,]] said Dynast Ilkwen dryly, who to all appearances had not seen the high seat’s brusqueness or the handing over of half of Honoghr’s army as at all worthy of comment.

Maul, who had long come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with Saxon’s particular form of diplomacy was to ignore it, just stared at her before turning to follow his commanders out.

\--*--

((Analysis,)) said Maul, once they had left the city limits and were appreciably out of earshot of the Imperials and the Syndic. He fully believed that they did not speak Mando’a, but it was not so obscure a language that there was not translation software available for it, and to speak freely upon the assumption that you would not be understood was a mistake too many of his enemies had made for him to repeat it.

((Ugly but jacked,)) said Saxon promptly.

Maul glared at him. ((_Useful _analysis.))

((That _is _useful, boss,)) said Saxon. ((You know fuckability is one of the metrics by which we judge ease of assimilation.))

((I dunno,)) said Rahl, ((I think we should qualify to ‘ugly but in a sexy way.’ Their teeth alone would get them about ten extra points.))

((I didn’t say they weren’t sexy,)) said Saxon, a little indignantly, before he shrugged. ((But you’re right, I forgot about the sharp teeth bonus.))

((We aren’t here to-)) started Maul, before giving up and walking away. Attempting to get Mando’ade on track once they had laid eyes on what was only partially euphemistically referred to as an ‘expansion opportunity’ was the ultimate exercise in futility.

Moving ahead, however, left him walking apace with Thrawn, and _only _Thrawn, the Syndic off to the side seemingly lost in thought and Niriz with his jaw still set lagging in the back, even at a distance of some ten meters his thoughts projecting a dark cloud.

Maul would have been content to walk the rest of the trip in silence, but Thrawn didn’t make it more than a few minutes before he coughed again.

“I, ah, apologize,” said Thrawn, somewhat delicately, “For not telling you before of my ties to the Syndic.”

“I was not aware it was supposed to a secret,” said Maul. “It was obvious you had some sort of relation.”

“Not a secret, perhaps,” said Thrawn, something in his shoulders loosening, “But we try to keep it quiet.”

Maul stared at him flatly. “You are not trying very hard, _tadiah_.”

Thrawn face went through a strange series of contortions.

“Was my pronunciation that poor,” said Maul.

“No,” said Thrawn. “It is actually unfortunately good. I’ll admit we get careless when we’re not around anyone else that speaks Cheunh; it never occurred to me someone could pick that out even as a term of address if they weren’t familiar with Cheunh sentence structure, much less as an endearment.”

“You stand too close together compared to your distance from Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo,” said Maul. “And the cadence of Cheunh is not dissimilar from Hapan.”

Thrawn looked at him thoughtfully. “May I ask how many languages you speak?” When Maul did not immediately reply, after a moment Thrawn said, “If that is a sensitive question-”

“It isn’t,” said Maul. “I’m counting.”

“… Ah,” said Thrawn.

After another twenty seconds, Maul said, “Eleven fluently, thirteen more passably. I can understand basic exchanges in another seventeen.”

“… I was feeling rather impressed with my five thirty seconds ago,” said Thrawn.

“In your defense,” said Maul dryly, with only a subtle glance behind him, “That is approximately five times the number of languages the average Imperial officer speaks.”

“In Captain Niriz’s defense,” said Thrawn, after a few seconds of wrestling with what may have been a laugh, “He actually speaks two.”

“So much for your five then,” said Maul.

This time Thrawn didn’t quite manage to catch himself, snorting out a surprisingly undignified chuckle, which seemed to startle him so badly that for a moment he actually stopped walking. When he started again, he seemed strangely determined not to look at Maul’s face when he asked, casually, “If you’re going to be learning Honoghran for the purposes of communicating with the Noghri forces, have you considered learning Cheunh as well? It is not the easiest language, but most of Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo’s forces do not speak Basic, and it would be useful if you could liaise with them directly as necessary-”

They were only a few hundred meters from the ship, and the way in front of them was clear. All the same, Maul suddenly felt a trickle of unease make its way down his spine. There was something in the air. A disturbance. “Something’s wrong.”

Thrawn turned his head to look at him. “Lord Maul?”

Something hostile. Dangerous. Furiously angry.

Right above them.

Maul looked up. Which was also the exact moment the Far Outsider scout ship de-cloaked itself and fired a missile at them.

The missile was only about two meters across, so Maul didn’t expect to have much difficulty grabbing it and throwing it back at the scout ship. Except that while he had half-expected the missile to be alive—all of the Far Outsider tech was, as far as anyone knew, no matter how temporary its use—he had not at all anticipated the way it _hummed _through the Force.

Not just alive. Aware. _Present_, in a way he had only ever sensed in a non-sentient being from kyber crystal.

(Specifically his _master’s_ kyber crystal, endlessly bleeding without ever having the relief of bleeding out.

Which made a certain amount of sense, he supposed. Death could hold no fear for something that longed for it.)

Which was problematic. The only reason Force users didn’t end lightsaber duels by crushing their opponent’s lightsaber telekinetically was that attuned kyber was resistant to Force influence from everyone but its master, and the same concept seemed to apply here.

Which meant the only way he could actually affect the missile directly would be to wrest attunement of it from its current master, which he couldn’t do in less than a second.

So instead he activated his lightsaber and hurled it blade first at the missile’s warhead.

The scout ship had fired from about five hundred meters up in the air and not directly above them, so when the warhead went off fifty meters up upon contact with a meter of pure plasma, most of the shrapnel rained down about a dozen meters to their left, catching a few unfortunate Noghri soldiers but otherwise leaving their party with nothing worse than some ringing in their ears.

“What the kriff was that?” asked Niriz, just in time for Parck’s voice to come crackling over the comm.

“Alert: You are being fired upon by a Far Outsider ship. Return to the shuttle _now_.”

Realistically, the advice was worthless. Even running at top speed, it would take most of them more than twenty seconds to even make it to the boarding ramp, by which time the scout ship could easily shoot several more missiles.

Fortunately, it didn’t matter, as it was at that time his lightsaber made contact with its secondary target.

Two seconds later, the scout ship crashed.

\--*--

Maul was aware of the flurry of activity happening behind him; mostly the Noghri gathering their wounded and reforming their perimeter while calling in backup, but also Niriz getting into a heated argument with Saxon and Rahl somewhere to his left, Thrawn and the Syndic getting into an equally heated but much quieter argument to his right, and no one making their way towards the shuttle despite Parck’s increasingly fervent requests that they do so.

None of that seemed particularly important. One of the Far Outsiders was still alive.

The front viewport of the scout ship had shattered, so there was nothing to stop him from jumping up on the ship’s nose and ducking inside, calling his lightsaber back to him as he did. The pilot had been decapitated by a broken piece of the viewport, but the co-pilot was still breathing, if barely; there was a visibly hole through his ribcage where Maul’s lightsaber had impaled him.

He was, however, awake, his eyes tracking Maul’s lightsaber as it flew back into Maul’s hand.

Maul crouched on the leaking remains of the console and looked at him.

It was… strange, to recognize in retrospect a feeling from nearly thirty years ago. That odd gap in his awareness from the Far Outsider warrior on Cog Hive Seven.

A clumsily trained Force wielder, inexpertly cloaking their presence in the Force.

The Far Outsider in front of him was not cloaking now.

It was not a strong Force presence. Maul, in truth, was not sure he would have noticed it at all, were it not for the fact that the co-pilot was still attuned to his ship—dying as much as he was, if even more slowly—and he could feel the agony thrumming in the link between them. It was not entirely due to the Far Outsider’s injury; the bond felt… tenuous. Forced. Two hands sewn together by wire instead of clasped.

Endlessly bleeding, just like the missile. A pale shadow only of his master’s thrall, but at this proximity the resemblance was still enough to make something churn in his stomach.

“Who are you?” he asked, then repeated himself in Sy Bisti, Bocce, Huttese. Dathomiri. _Sith_.

Nothing. The Far Outsider’s face showed only incomprehension.

It was beginning to look like a mind probe would be the only useful avenue for gathering information, but Maul was not sure a mere scout ship pilot would have _enough _information to make it worth the unpleasantness of having to touch the Far Outsider’s thoughts, which even at a distance were enough to remind him of his worst days on Mustafar.

Which was a weak thought in of itself. Since when had mere unpleasantness stopped him from doing what needed to be done?

He was still debating this with himself when the Far Outsider started to chuckle.

“What?” Maul snapped, then instantly felt foolish for asking a question that had no way of being answered.

The Far Outsider just shook his head, still chuckling as blood bubbled from his lips. “_Nikk tchurrokk sen khattazz al'Yun-Yammka. Nikk dag zhaetor-zhae_. _Tchurrok!_”

And then the Far Outsider died.

It was a few minutes later that Maul heard from outside of the ship, “Lord Maul?”

Maul ducked back out of the ship’s broken viewport and looked down at Thrawn. The Grand Admiral looked uninjured, but there was a tension in his presence that hadn’t been there even when the missile exploded. “What?”

Thrawn just looked at him for a long moment before saying, “You disappeared.”

“I was retrieving my lightsaber,” Maul said, jumping down from the ship’s nose and landing a few meters from Thrawn.

For all of the turmoil in Thrawn’s emotions, Thrawn’s voice was carefully neutral as he said, “And the pilots?”

Force sensitive. Just like the warrior on Cog Hive Seven. Just like the warrior’s staff. Like his armor. Like the missile, like the _ship_, dying by centimeters behind them and so, so glad it was finally at an end.

Thrawn was already terrified of the Far Outsiders. Wanted nothing more than to bring the full might of the Empire down upon them, to bring _every _force the galaxy had to bear against them.

What would he do, with the knowledge that the Far Outsiders were Force sensitive?

What would _Sidious_ do, with that knowledge? An entire empire of Dark Side users, just waiting for him to control?

The pilots? “Dead.”

**Author's Note:**

> That One Noghri: I’m pretty sure an alien flirted with me today.
> 
> Friend: Were they hot?
> 
> That One Noghri: Not… really?
> 
> Friend: Were you still into it?
> 
> That One Noghri: … Kinda.
> 
> Friend: All right then.
> 
> So it's been a while. I've never actually stopped working on this series, just... never a lot.


End file.
